


Play Nice

by Prompt Cheese (Ketenn)



Series: A Very Gabenath Halloween [5]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Emmanuel is Adrien's bodyguard, F/M, Fluff, Gabenath B&A Club Halloween Prompt, Maybe OOC I'm not sure anymore, Spiders
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:54:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27305191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ketenn/pseuds/Prompt%20Cheese
Summary: They were definitely up to something.
Relationships: Gabriel Agreste | Papillon | Hawk Moth/Nathalie Sancoeur
Series: A Very Gabenath Halloween [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1969936
Comments: 5
Kudos: 24
Collections: GNBCAAC Halloween 2020 Prompts





	Play Nice

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks again to Diring (and their cat) for doing the beta work.
> 
> The prompt was “spookifying the house”

They were definitely up to something. She was about to open a plastic bag with bat decorations in it and the rustle gave them enough reason to make more noise. Her hands stopped and she looked over her shoulder. Both Adrien and Gabriel had their hands behind their backs. Gabriel’s stance was as lax as the posture allowed. But Adrien’s looked very forced and his head was red like a tomato from stifled laughter. It looked like he was trying to mock his father by mimicking him.

They looked like living caricatures of cartoon characters. She could imagine Adrien acting out those scenes for fun, but not Gabriel. He barely remembered what cartoons were. Something was clearly going on and they did not want to share it with her.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Nothing,” Gabriel said with the most soothing tone. His voice could lull a Halloween monster to sleep, so it had a slight chance to lay her suspicions to rest.

“Alright,” she said, entirely unconvinced.

She spent too much time persuading Gabriel to let the house be decorated for Halloween. He was too old-fashioned to let the fact slide that Halloween was not a thing in his childhood. That she had won after their long debate, complete with well-thought-out thesis statements, arguments and counterexamples was a miracle. That Gabriel also joined them was something beyond that. And for Adrien’s sake, she did not want it ruined.

She was fiercely fighting two entangled bats when Gabriel’s hiss of “no” stopped her hands again.

She looked back again. Adrien and Gabriel were frozen in the same posture as before, but now they were standing closer to her.

Adrien’s hair looked ruffled, although with his crazy locks pointing in every direction of the compass even after a good case of combing was not much indication to what they were doing. What _did_ gave away the ongoing fight between them was Gabriel’s creased suit. He always tried to keep it neat, no matter what he did during the day. And then there was his gentle, reassuring smile.

“Play nice,” she warned sardonically.

“We do,” they said at the same time, with the same defensive tone.

They were obviously lying, but she let a small smile spread over her face. This was the first time in years she spotted any kind of resemblance between them. She did not want to turn her back on them again, but the bats in her hand were ready to be hanged from the window.

As soon as she took the duct tape from the window sill, a black blot appeared in her periphery. She did not leave time for her eyes to focus on it, instead she instinctively grabbed the hand wobbling the black thing in front of her face and pulled it to the other side.

“Yeeeet!” Adrien squeaked as his body followed his hand.

He was standing between the window and Nathalie now, trembling and lips pursed.

“Oh no, I’m sorry!” Nathalie cried and brought her hands to her mouth. Adrien held onto the window sill. He must be really hurt.

“I told you not to do it,” Gabriel’s voice behind her was too calm. “She’s more afraid of sudden movements than spiders.”

Nathalie looked down. The bats and the duct tape she dropped were accompanied by a huge, hairy, plastic spider on the ground. Her eyes travelled back to the now openly chucking Adrien.

“Are you kidding? It was _awesome_!”

Nathalie looked back at Gabriel, hoping to find some answers to what was going on, but all he did was slowly shaking his head at his son’s foolhardy attitude.

“Here you go,” Adrien said. He was handing the duct tape and the bats to her in one hand and holding the spider in the other. He wobbled the spider again when he noticed her looking at it. “I’ll ask Emmanuel to help me hang the spider from the ceiling. You should ask Father to help you with these bats.”

There was something very wicked in the way he said it.

“Emmanuel _is_ afraid of spiders, you know,” she retorted, trying to distract him from any visible reaction she might have had.

“I do,” he said. “I’ll cover it and show it to him only after we’ve hung it.” He shrugged. “But can we call this spookifying the house if nobody is actually spooked by the decoration? Clearly, Emmanuel knows that too.”

“He clearly does,” Nathalie sighed and patted him on the shoulder.

Adrien winked at her and went over to Emmanuel, who was trying to make a skeleton remain in a sitting position on the stairs.

“I apologise for his behaviour,” Gabriel said, stepping next to her. “I’ve tried to stop him.”

“I know,” she said, thoughtlessly tinkering with a bat between her fingers. “You weren’t as quiet as you thought you were.”

He hummed and then extended his arm.

“May I help you?”

“Of course,” she said and dropped the duct tape in his palm.

It was much easier with his help. The three bats were soon hanging down from three windows of the hall and Nathalie opened the next set. Her heart sank at the thought that it may end sooner than she thought.

“Thank you,” he said after he glued the fourth bat to the wall. His voice was serene, like moments ago, when he tried to put her suspicions to rest.

“You’re the one helping me.” She tried to make her answer sound completely normal.

When she handed him the fifth bat, he clutched her hand and rubbed the back of it with his thumb. He slowly looked at him.

“I mean you were the one who pushed me to allow it, _and_ to join. I may not be a fan of this Halloween craze, but I’m oddly happy that I can be part of this festive atmosphere.” He broke eye contact to take in the hall. “I never realised how much I missed it.”

She absent-mindedly touched his lower arm only with her fingertips, making him turn towards her again.

“We could make it a habit again.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

Silence fell between them. For a moment, she thought that she stepped over the boundaries. But then his hand covered hers.

“I think that would be lovely.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is it Guys, this is my last prompt for Halloween. I hope you had just as much fun as I did and I hope you will have fun in real life too, with Halloween knocking on your door! :)
> 
> Stay safe!


End file.
